Crude Nation: a destruicao da Venezuela pelo petroleo - Raul Gallegos (Nebraska UPress)

Petróleo é uma maldição, para países mal organizados. O Brasil estaria muito melhor hoje, se não tivesse descoberto o pré-sal. Isso atiçou a sanha dos companheiros mafiosos, e quadruplicou sua vontade de roubar. Certo: eles teriam destruído a Petrobras de qualquer jeito, mas talvez muito antes de toda a tragédia, que continuou a ser alimentada pela exuberância do pré-sal, que elevou as ações da Petrobras, deu-lhe um grau de investimento que ela não teria na ausência do pré-sal, não a teria endividado exageradamente, o bandido do Lula não teria modificado a Lei do Petróleo de 1997, não teria criado a Sete Brasil, uma empresa feita inteiramente para roubar em grande escala, não teria criado um enorme problema constitucional na repartição desses royalties que derivaram da modificação da lei, enfim, a desgraça seria menor, e teria tido um desenlace bem antes da agonia que foram os anos da Madame Pasadena.
No caso da Venezuela, o desastre foi muito maior, e o roubo em escala ainda mais gigantesca. A Alba só existiu em função dos petrodólares chavistas, e deve deixar de existir dentro em breve. Enfim, o petróleo na Venezuela foi a maldição absoluta, e o livro de Raúl Gallegos deve trazer promenores a esse respeito.
Dá para ler um excerto, mas está ainda muito caro para comprar. Em seis meses dá para comprar na Abebooks por poucos dólares.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Crude Nation How Oil Riches Ruined Venezuela Raúl Gallegos hardcover2016. 256 pp. 9 photographs, 1 map 978-1-61234-770-7 $34.95 t   Read an Excerpt (pdf) Beneath Venezuelan soil lies an ocean of crude—the world’s largest reserves—an oil patch that shaped the nature of the global energy business. Unfortunately, a dysfunctional anti-American, leftist government controls this vast resource and has used its wealth to foster voter support, ultimately wreaking economic havoc. Crude Nation reveals the ways in which this mismanagement has led to Venezuela’s economic ruin and turned the country into a cautionary tale for the world. Raúl Gallegos, a former Caracas-based oil correspondent, paints a picture both vivid and analytical of the country’s economic decline, the government’s foolhardy economic policies, and the wrecked lives of Venezuelans. Without transparency, the Venezuelan government uses oil money to subsidize life for its citizens in myriad unsustainable ways, while regulating nearly every aspect of day-to-day existence in Venezuela. This has created a paradox in which citizens can fill up the tanks of their SUVs for less than one American dollar while simultaneously enduring nationwide shortages of staples such as milk, sugar, and toilet paper. Gallegos’s insightful analysis shows how mismanagement has ruined Venezuela again and again over the past century and lays out how Venezuelans can begin to fix their country, a nation that can play an important role in the global energy industry.   Raúl Gallegos, a senior analyst for the consulting firm Control Risks, has been a featured columnist for Bloomberg View, covering Latin American politics, business, and finance. He has been an oil correspondent with Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. "A timely, important book."—Publishers Weekly "Crude Nation brilliantly paints the reality, and comprehensively expounds the extent and implications of Venezuela’s mishandling of precious and finite oil riches, and its unpropitious economic mismanagement."—Impeccable Business “Gallegos provides a compelling, enlightening view into the everyday—challenging readers to understand life in one of the world’s most volatile economies.”—Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group and author of Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World   “An invitation to understand the tragedy of one of the richest economies in the hands of an irresponsible and tyrannical government.”—Álvaro Uribe, former president of Colombia   “Venezuela’s tragedy was not inevitable. Why did it happen? How could it have been avoided? Who pushed Venezuelan society into the abyss of misery, death and corruption where it now lies? These pages offer interesting clues to answer these questions.”—Moisés Naím, author of The End of Power    “Raúl Gallegos is a sharp-eyed guide to the alternate universe that is contemporary Venezuela. His new book, Crude Nation, makes for a lively, surprising read.”—Paul M. Barrett, author of Law of the Jungle   “Crude Nation ponders Hugo Chávez’s legacy: an economy run more on magical realism than on either Keynes or Marx. How does a country with the world’s largest oil reserves fail so miserably in virtually every critical sector? Gallegos has a compelling theory why and has more answers than most.”—Ann Louise Bardach, PEN award–winning journalist and author of Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington “Crude Nation is essential reading for those wanting to understand what is happening in Venezuela today and what it will take to turn that nation around.”—Shannon K. O’Neil, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead   “Raúl Gallegos does a superb job chronicling Venezuela’s myriad woes. No other account captures in such stark terms and vivid detail how calamitous the utter mismanagement of oil riches can be for an economy and society. Crude Nationtells a tragic, cautionary tale—one with untold costs for most Venezuelans.”—Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank